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United States and European space agencies hope to launch very soon missions to study the star that centers our planetary system as never before
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The Sun, the star that centers our planetary system, remains a great mystery. The distance to which he is from our planet, and his state of celestial body in the heat of combustion, makes his study difficult.
But man does not faint in his intentions to better understand the functioning of our natural star. Closer, and the technological advancements of the last decades make that yesterday were dreams, tomorrow could begin to come true.
That's why the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will present a probe to the Sun next August, to investigate like never before . Something similar is planned by the European Space Agency
The US mission calls Parker Solar Probe, the name of the ship that will depart to the Sun with the intention of approaching 6 , 43 million kilometers, which would be the shortest distance ever reached. reached by man in relation to Astro Rey, and for that a new technological system will be implemented
As much as possible
"humanity" approached "the Sun in 1976 when the space probe Helios 2 was 43 million kilometers away. This distance even exceeded Mercury, the planet most "blocked" by Astro Rey, which reached 46 million kilometers.
What Parker Solar Probe intends to do is unprecedented. The realization of such a business is based on the use of a heat shield that NASA has called the Thermal Protection System (TPS).
The new technology will be installed on the ship that will make the trip to the sun, to avoid exposing it to temperatures above 1,300 degrees Celsius. If all goes well, the ship would not discover the hell that surrounds it, as it would travel at about 30 degrees C.
NASA describes that the heat shield is formed by two carbon-carbon composite panels. superheated carbon, which intermingled a core of carbon foam 4.5 inches (11.3 centimeters) thick.
The face of the shield that will look at the sun will also be sprayed with a specially created white coating and formulated to reflect as much solar energy as possible. leave it out of the ship.
The shield will weigh only about 160 pounds, and the foam that will compose it will be 97% air. NASA says the light weight on the shield is essential for the vessel to remain in the necessary orbit, since it will move at approximately 692,000 kilometers per hour closer to the sun.
Q What to look for?
NASA intends with this mission to study the magnetic fields of the Sun, those of plasma particles and the dynamics of solar winds. Argue of this dependence of the US government that the Sun is the only star we have "close", so approaching this is an important step to better understand its functioning across the universe.
Adds NASA to the web of the mission as disturbances in the solar wind shake the Earth's magnetic field, a compelling reason to try to understand them. It is also known that "space time" is able to affect the useful life of satellites, an interesting aspect to discover why.
The Parker Solar Probe will also seek to unravel the mysteries related to the solar corona, the atmosphere that is seen around the Sun in an eclipse, and that is at a higher temperature than the surface. This phenomenon defies the laws of physics, and the probe could reveal the reasons for which it occurs.
To all this, we must add that if the TPS works and survives the heat of the Sun, it would surely have applications in the land industry.
E uropa also
The European Space Agency also intends to send a mission this year to explore the Sun, even if it would not be as near that of NASA
Launched next October, the probe will call Solar Orbiter (Solar Orbiter in English), and reach a distance of 43 million kilometers from the Sun, in the orbit of Mercury .
Said probe would be equipped with ten state-of-the-art equipment to take high-resolution images never seen before from Astro Rey, and also study parameters similar to those of NASA, but as the distances of approach of two missions are different s, the crossing of the data would make it possible to draw conclusions hitherto unsuspected.
European and US polls will take more than three years to reach their destinations. Both will be propelled to the Sun using the gravitational force of the Earth and Venus.
In the case of Solar Orbiter, its developers expect to be able to "work" for seven years because it will face lower temperatures. to the mission of NASA, because "only" will be 600 degrees Celsius.
Another difference in these missions lies in the weight of the probes. The Parker Solar Probe would weigh a little more than 600 kilograms because it is composed mostly of carbon, while the Solar Orbiter is made of titanium and will weigh 1,800 kilograms
Although it still takes years before these space missions reach their peak. destinations, the certain thing is that human investigation intentions in the space show more and more, and this goes hand in hand of technological development.
In the end, if the computing power now available to a cell phone could send dozens of ships to the moon – something unthinkable in 1969, when the Apollo 11 landed on our natural satellite – that we seek the form of "kissing" the Sun is not unreasonable.
Parker Solar Probe is the ship of NASA. Photo: Twitter.
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